President Islam Karimov was re-elected in
January 2000 after elections in which there was no
democratic competition, according to the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe.

The Uzbek
government has not officially registered any political
parties other than those aligned with the president, and
organized political opposition is not tolerated. The media
is subject to strict government censorship and there are no
independent media.

Since Uzbekistan became
independent in 1991, Amnesty International has addressed
authorities there on a number of issues relating to the
detention or ill-treatment of opposition political figures
and human rights activists; torture and ill-treatment of
detainees; "disappearances", the death penalty and criminal
proceedings which fall short of international fair trial
standards.

The period from 1992 to 1995 was
characterized by a serious clampdown on political dissent in
Uzbekistan. Between 1994 and 1996 there was evidence of
improvement in the treatment of opposition political
activists, with a large number of imprisoned opposition
activists benefiting from amnesties. Nevertheless, some
political activists remained in detention, and at the same
time official conduct towards religious activists harshened
considerably. Amnesty International received increasing
numbers of reports of harassment of "independent" Muslims
who worshipped at mosques not under the direct control of
the state-regulated Muslim Board. These reports include
allegations of short-term arbitrary arrests, interference
with worship and Islamic teaching, beatings and in some of
the most serious cases, leaders of independent Islamic
congregations were punished with long periods of
imprisonment on apparently fabricated charges, or even
"disappeared". Although the Uzbek constitution guarantees
the separation of state and religion, the activities of the
Muslim Board of Uzbekistan, that regulates the religious
life of the country, are effectively controlled by the
government. The Uzbek authorities are opposed to all but
this official, controlled form of Islam.

In December
1997 several murders of law enforcement officials in the
Namangan region sparked a wave of mass detentions and
arrests of devout Muslims. The authorities used the murders
as a pretext for indiscriminately targeting so-called
"Wahhabists". Hundreds were sentenced to long terms of
imprisonment in trials that fell far short of international
fair trial standards. All those detained were said to have
been verbally abused, threatened, beaten and ill-treated in
detention. It was alleged that weapons and narcotics were
openly planted on some of those detained in order to
fabricate a criminal case against them. Since then AI has
documented a worrying rise in the number of reports of
arbitrary detentions, ill-treatment and torture, in
particular of individuals suspected to be supporters of or
sympathizers with banned Islamic opposition parties.

[The term "Wahhabi" has been used incorrectly,
indiscriminately and pejoratively by governments throughout
the former Soviet Union, including Uzbekistan, to describe
radical opposition Islamic groups perceived as a threat to
national security and stability. In this context the term
does not refer to Muslims who practice Wahhabism (an
orthodox form of Islam practised in South Arabia).]

In February 1999 bomb explosions in the capital Tashkent --
which killed 16 people -- triggered another wave of
arbitrary arrests of supposed conspirators. AI was concerned
that the authorities used the investigations into the
bombings as a pretext to further clamp down on perceived
sources of opposition to President Karimov and to intensify
the campaign against the spread of radical Islamic
opposition in Uzbekistan. The list of those reported to have
been arrested, and allegedly ill-treated and tortured was
extended to suspected supporters of the banned political
opposition parties and movements Erk and Birlik, as well as
alleged supporters of banned Islamic opposition parties and
movements, such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir, including members of
their family, and independent human rights monitors. All the
men tried and sentenced to death in connection with the
bombings have reportedly been executed.

The clampdown
on suspected sympathizers with banned Islamic opposition
parties intensified following armed incursions by fighters
of the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) who
crossed Kyrgyz territory from neighbouring Tajikistan on
their way to Uzbekistan in August 1999. They took several
hostages in Kyrgyzstan, including four Japanese nationals,
and declared a jihad (holy war) on Uzbekistan. After two
months of a military stand-off the hostages were released
and the IMU withdrew from Kyrgyz territory. In August 2000
violent clashes broke out between the Uzbek armed forces and
armed units of the IMU when they tried to enter southeastern
Uzbekistan from neighbouring Afghanistan, Tajikistan and
Kyrgyzstan. Detentions of suspected sympathizers with the
IMU and Hizb-ut-Tahrir, including women, have continued at
an alarming rate. Thousands of devout Muslims convicted,
after unfair trials, of membership of an illegal party,
distribution of illegal religious literature and anti-state
activities are currently serving long prison sentences.

In virtually all the cases that have come to the attention
of Amnesty International, those detained have been denied
prompt access to a lawyer of their choice, to their families
and to medical assistance. Those with the responsibility to
do so -- procurators, courts at all levels, and the
parliamentary ombudsman -- have persistently failed to
launch timely, full and independent investigations into
widespread allegations of torture and ill-treatment.
According to independent and credible sources,
self-incriminating evidence reportedly extracted as a result
of torture has been admitted routinely as evidence in trial
proceedings and has provided the primary basis for a guilty
verdict in many of the cases.

Amnesty International
has been disturbed by public statements by Uzbek officials,
including the President of Uzbekistan, in the wake of both
the Namangan murders, the Tashkent bombings and the IMU
incursions, which appear to condone or encourage the use of
unlawful methods such as torture and ill-treatment. In April
1999, for example, President Karimov, portrayed as the
guarantor of democracy and human rights, stated publicly
that he was prepared to tear off the heads of two hundred
people in order to protect Uzbekistan's freedom and
stability. Amnesty International is concerned that such
statements -- together with the authorities' persistent
failure to initiate impartial and thorough investigations
into allegations of torture and ill-treatment -- give the
signal that arbitrary arrest, torture and ill-treatment in
general, and in particular of alleged supporters of banned
secular political and Islamic opposition parties by law
enforcement officials, are acceptable and even necessary,
and that they can engage in such conduct with impunity.

Public statements by Uzbek officials have criminalized
members and presumed members of independent Islamic
congregations, their families and political opposition
figures. On several occasions the Uzbek authorities,
including the President, Interior Minister and Prosecutor
General, have called on people involved in
''non-traditional'' Islamic groups and activities to come
forward and ''admit their guilt'', threatening those who do
not, and their families, with punishment. On 2 April 1999
President Karimov had reportedly said he would issue a
decree allowing for the arrest of a suspect's father if the
sons who were involved in "religious extremism" could not be
found. "If my child chose such a path, I myself would rip
off his head," he was quoted in the press as saying. Amnesty
International is concerned that statements such as President
Karimov's above have led to thousands of arbitrary arrests
and have been prejudicial to the outcome of scores of trials
of alleged members or supporters of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the IMU,
Erk and Birlik.

Amnesty International has raised its
concerns about reports that devout Muslim prisoners are
singled out for particularly cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment in places of detention, particularly in strict
regime prison camps. According to relatives and former
prisoners, upon arrival at a prison camp suspected
"Wahhabists" or suspected members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir are
separated from other prisoners and made to run between two
lines of guards who beat them with truncheons as they pass.
There are also allegations that devout Muslim prisoners are
subjected to beatings, humiliation, forced labour and rape
by other prisoners with the complicity of prison
authorities. They are forced to sing the national anthem and
are severely beaten if they refuse to do so. There are
consistent allegations that devout Muslim prisoners are not
allowed to read the Koran or to pray in strict regime prison
camps, and that they have their beards forcibly shaved. They
are reportedly beaten or confined to punishment cells if
they are caught praying.

Human rights groups reported
several cases of deaths in custody -- in pre-trial detention
or prison camps -- all of them as a result of torture or
ill-treatment by law enforcement personnel. Reports from
unofficial sources indicate that at least 20, and possibly
as many as 38 prisoners, have died in Yaslik prison camp
over the last two years as a result of torture and poor
conditions. However, it has been difficult to confirm the
exact causes of death independently.

In August
2000,after the IMU incursion, the Uzbek military, forcibly
and without prior notice, rounded up and resettled thousands
of mostly ethnic Tajik inhabitants from mountain villages in
the southern Surkhandarynsk region on the border with
Tajikistan, reportedly because armed units of the IMU had
infiltrated these villages. The villages were set on fire
and bombed, livestock were killed, houses and fields
destroyed. In June 2001, 73 ethnic Tajik villagers, accused
of supporting the IMU, were sentenced to long prison terms
in four separate trials despite earlier government
assurances to the UN Human Rights Committee that the action
to evacuate the villagers was taken in order to improve the
living conditions of the people concerned and that no
criminal cases would be opened against the forcibly
displaced villagers. All of the 73 accused had been held
incommunicado and alleged that they had been tortured in
order to force them to confess.

The Uzbek authorities
have to date failed to publish any statistics on the use of
the death penalty, which remains classified as a state
secret. AI is seriously concerned that Uzbekistan continues
to pass death sentences and to execute those convicted. The
fact that a substantial number of men sentenced to death
have alleged that they were tortured in pre-trial detention
greatly heightened this concern.

The organization is
also concerned at the way in which relatives of prisoners
condemned to death are treated by the Uzbek authorities
causing unnecessary distress and in itself constituting
cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The family is not
informed of the date of execution and does not have the
right to receive the body of the executed man, which is
buried in an unmarked grave in an undisclosed location. In
scores of cases, the family have not been notified of the
death of the prisoner until months after the execution has
taken place. In some cases the family may not even receive a
death certificate.

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